Airline unions find friends in D.C.

Lawmakers who signed on to a letter spearheaded by a union locked in a battle with American Airlines have something in common: donations from the union.

All but one of the 121 House Democrats who signed a letter urging American to drop its opposition to allowing passenger service agents a vote on forming a union have received campaign donations from the Communications Workers of America over the past decade.

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Several of the signatories said they gave their John Hancock to the effort to show support for workers’ rights.

In total, signatories to the letter have received about $2.5 million over the past 10 years from CWA’s PAC. Donations to individuals range from $2,500 to about $58,000 — but on average each signer received about $21,000 from CWA over the time period examined.

Chuck Porcari, a CWA spokesman, threw cold water on any suggestion that union donations influenced lawmakers to sign the letter. He suggested that American Airlines’ lobbying and donations also should be examined. (The same group of people over the same time period received about $232,000 from American Airlines’ PAC. American also engages a phalanx of lobbying firms on its behalf.)

Porcari also denied any CWA involvement in gathering signatures, saying the office of Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) “took the lead on that.” Porcari did acknowledge that CWA asked for the letter in the first place but said “it’s a congressional letter. We don’t physically walk the things around office to office.”

According to emails obtained by POLITICO, however, representatives of CWA and other unions — including the AFL-CIO — did solicit members’ staffs for lawmakers to sign the letter. Similarly, according to Porcari, American’s lobbyists were on Capitol Hill “desperately trying to bat this letter back.”

This level of support for the election is a measure of CWA and other unions’ strength among Democrats, particularly considering that lawmakers generally do not like getting involved in parochial union issues such as specific elections or contract disputes. That is particularly the case if they don’t have constituents who are directly affected.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said signing the letter was about standing up for labor as a philosophy.

“It’s so complicated for workers to organize these days that, you know, making sure the company is keeping an open mind and not interfering with the process is important to me, whatever it is,” Pingree said in an interview. “It doesn’t have to do specifically with American or any particular experience I’ve had with them or their employees.”